Corporate Speak aka “blah blah blah…”

On occasion we all run into someone speaking at a conference or writing an article, that seems very impressive, however after you are done listening or reading you can not explain what they said to someone else. Their goal is to look good rather than do good. They are particularly problematic in the compliance and ethics field. They accomplish nothing at a time when we need to accomplish something. They use one trite saying after another. It’s also known as “corporate speak.” We need to do more than talk a good game. We need to prevent, find and fix ethical and regulatory problems. Its hard work. I am astonished how many people fall for and are impressed by, esoteric and hollow yammering. I decided to try my hand at writing like them. As it turns out, it is very easy to be full of it. Here is my crack at writing without substance, otherwise known as “Corporate Speak”……

We will empower our employees to synergize our constituency.We will do the right thing by creating an ethical culture beginning with tone at the top to ensure our core values are aligned with our performance integrity standards.Ultimately we will mitigate the enterprise-wide risk assessment with our governance, risk and compliance plan.Our values-based performance Gant Chart will be mapped to our compliance program maturity model.

Your leadership is providing this heads up as we gear up for the ramp up to the roll out. If you are an impactful team player, the ask will be to wrap your arms around the value proposition.This paradigm shift will require us to ping those who are able to read the tea leaves.

We will marinate the boilerplate with our risk appetite.Then we will move the needle into our swim lane by burning the platform. We will drill down to the low hanging fruit and create a window of opportunity.If we do hit a hard stop, we will set up a SWAT team who will assess the impact of going over the wall.

Even if someone moves the goalposts, there will be no Monday morning quarterbacking. This isn’t our first rodeo, so the trial balloon won’t be a heavy lift.After we close the loop, we will gain traction by dialing in on our critical path. There will be no sacred cows when we repurpose the scope creep.

In summary, we will boil the ocean to increase our learnings and ensure our business ecosystem is scalable.If we execute, we will be able to establish our running game and dominate the line of scrimmage by pounding it out on the ground. However, if that dog won’t hunt, we will herd the cats until the cows come home.Leadership may ask some of you to play this back to ensure you understand. Everyone except my cat will be asked to think outside the box. This project will take us from cradle to grave… very soon.